I had successive weeks of heavy lifting in the long run department. That meant a lot of climbing plus a pretty high weekly mileage. My friend Karen messaged a group of us that she was sweeping the Skyline 50k and asked if anyone would be interested in joining her. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to take a bit of the breather but still get some solid time on my feet on what was another back-to-back long run weekend. Sam and I took her up on her offer.

I had back to back 25 mile training runs on the schedule for this past weekend. Since I had an early, 7+ hour shift covering the San Francisco Marathon for Ultra Sports Live.TV on Sunday, I moved the runs to Friday and Saturday.

Mount Tamalpais and Mount Diablo

Day One – Two base to summit climbs on Mount Tamalpais following Eldridge and Old Railroad Grade.

Day Two – Two base to summit climbs on Mount Diablo. The first climb to Mount Olympia and North Peak, the second climb to Eagle Peak and Mount Diablo.

Tell me three things you did right, three things you learned, and three things you would do differently. – Ann Trason

My coach, Ann, had suggested I start doing “race reports” on my long runs describing three things I did right, learned, and would do differently.

“Why?” I asked, “It’s not a race.”

“It’s good practice.” Well, okay then.

Dog Meat and the Kennedy Rollers

I went down to San Jose to do repeats of the Priest Rock, Kennedy, and Limekiln Trails that form mile 19 to 30 of the Quicksilver 100k course. As if doing that once during the race wasn’t enough I decided to attempt 3 repeats (33 miles) but I had my fill of “Dog Meat”, the Kennedy rollers, and the heat after two. I cut the run down to 27 miles and 2-1/2 loops.

Just go do the damn thing. Anything that happens, you deserve. Maybe it will teach you something. -Lazarus Lake

I ran my first ultra in 2011 and it wasn’t until this year that I finally felt ready to tackle the 100 mile distance. We come to this place in our own way and in our own time. For me, it was time. I remember sitting in my car the first day registration opened for the Javelina Jundred back in February. I had the signup page loaded on my phone, the “Submit” button patiently waiting for my input. I spent the next few hours in a daze wondering what the hell I’d just done.

We were scheduled for a reduced mileage week and since I was coming off of the San Francisco Marathon plus three very high volume weeks I was more than ready for some recovery. It was Alina’s turn to create the route and at this point we were on a roll with Point Reyes so we figured we might as well keep going. We’d covered big sections to the south and in the center. Now Alina’s route would take us north to the largest set of connected trails we had left to explore.

Can you get post awesome-training-run blues? After the Bello 50k we’d done last week I was in a funk. I’m normally pretty keen on coming up with routes but I was drawing a blank. We’d been rotating driving duty on the weekends and Alina had the idea that whoever did the driving might come up with the route. I was game for that. It was Jen’s turn to drive and she suggested heading back to Point Reyes since there was still so much of it to explore. For some reason I hadn’t considered that an option and was excited to go back.